An European car that hasn't been dumbed down
JEREMY CATO
December 20, 2007
LOS ANGELES -- Toyota has been selling Corollas around the world for decades. Same for Volkswagen's Golf and Rabbit. The Mazda3? Ditto. And so on.
Now, in a move that represents either desperation or inspiration, General Motors is doing what the competition has been doing for a long time. GM is going global with the Opel Astra.
Here in Canada and down in the United States, the new car is being called the Saturn Astra and the most basic four-door hatchback starts at $17,900. The sportiest two-door hatchback tops out at $21,225.
Dan Burton, Saturn marketing manager, says Saturn is coming late, pretty much unannounced and bearing the baggage of the sad-sack Ion -my words, not his - as it launches this '08 Astra, so the pricing is ultra-competitive.
He argues the base Astra XE has a $2,120 advantage over the Honda Civic DX, factoring standard equipment on both models. The same exercise brings the Astra XE's "advantage" to $920 versus the Mazda3 GS and $2,510 for the Astra XE compared with the Rabbit.
Naturally, if you visit a Mazda dealer, or a Honda dealer, or a Volkswagen dealer, they'll do their best to refute Burton, who says his new Astra has all sorts of stuff - AM-FM CD with six speakers, power windows with express-down on all windows, OnStar communications, tire-pressure monitor, five head restraints and so on - "you don't find on the competition."
What we've never seen before from Saturn, or any of GM's other divisions, is a small car that sells itself not just on price, but on performance, too. Shocking.
Yes, the '08 Astra will entertain you. No one ever said that about the Ion - unless you are talking about the weird design or astonishingly wide panel gaps.
GM has done the unthinkable for GM: bring a European car to North America without "dumbing" it down. Those are my words, not lead development engineer Don Straitiff's, but it's the point of his engineering presentation here.
"It's just fun to drive and easily out-handles the Civic and the Mazda3," he says.
Hmm. This is the same company, mind you, that a few years back took a very decent Opel Vectra and turned it into a lumpy Cadillac Catera.
To be fair, GM isn't the first Detroit-based auto maker to flub an attempt at a world car. Here, Ford comes to mind. Remember the Focus we saw at the early part of this decade? A fine driver's car, and it looked good, too.
Unfortunately, in transferring production of the European-designed Focus to Mexico, the quality control got lost in translation. What had been Euro-chic became Euro-trash. Despite ride and handling that had even Consumer Reports' testers singing a happy tune, the Focus took a beating for lax quality. Ten recalls in the first two years will do that to you.
There is an updated 2008 Focus out there and it has a whiz-bang gizmo called Sync - developed in conjunction with Microsoft - that apparently simplifies the use of many electronic features. No word yet on whether you need to restart the Focus - reboot it - if something get out of sync.
The latest Focus is many things, but a stylistic tour de force it is not. Unless, of course, you liked the good ol' Escort of the 1990s. If so, you are in heaven.
Excuse the digression, but there's a point and it is that GM is bucking Detroit's status quo.
Dr. Johnson once said nothing so concentrates the mind like the thought of the hangman in a fortnight. Well, Detroit's auto makers are heading straight to the gallows if they insist on doing what they've done for the last 30 years. The Astra speaks to GM's desire for survival.
Yes, it's different for GM to launch an Astra that is more or less identical to the European Opel Astra in every significant way. That means it was designed in Ruesselsheim, Germany, tuned for the autobahn and is built in Antwerp, Belgium.
It also means Saturn officials expect their Astra here to get the same outstanding safety scores they've earned in Europe. Safety features include six standard airbags, including roof-rail, head curtain airbags and thorax/pelvic airbags for front-seat passengers.
Among other safety features, the Astra has active head restraints and a pedal release system. Electronic stability control with traction control is standard on all two-door Astras and available on four-door hatchbacks.
That's all well and good, but few people are willing to buy a safe but ugly car. No problem here.
The Astra has a sporty look riding on a long wheelbase and wide stance. The sheet metal looks taut and modern, with a strong look from the rear.
Mechanically, the Astra isn't as sophisticated as its main rivals in Europe. The basic torsion-beam rear suspension is nothing fancy, yet Straitiff and other GM engineers have done well in terms of ride and handling. Ride comfort is just fine for this segment, body roll is well-controlled and the electro-hydraulic power steering is relatively precise, though somewhat dead on-centre.
The only engine is a 138-horsepower four-banger and it is peppy and fuel-efficient. The manual five-speed changes gears smoothly and the brakes operate with slickness and consistency. The four-speed automatic is also quite satisfactory. Note, though, that the industry is moving to six-speed manuals and five- and six-speed automatics.
Overall, this is an amusing car to hustle through corners and, other than some road noise at higher speeds, the Astra is very good on long highway stretches.
The cabin will take some getting used to for most North Americans. There is a distinct lack of cup holders, for instance. Those up front share one. That's right, you coffee-drinking commuters, one cup holder!
The black-and-grey colour scheme of my tester's interior - hard plastic all around - was downright dreary, too. Oh, and the manually adjustable four-way seats work, once you figure out how to manage the knobs and levers and whatnot.
The Astra also comes with an irritating automatic feature for the door locks. I'd go into details, but let me just say this: You will find yourself manually unlocking the doors more often than you might think.
The Astra will do nothing but good things for Saturn and even the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada liked it enough to vote it best new small car of 2008. It's no Ion.
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